With the advent of mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads, Android Tablets, hybrid tablets, and the iPod Touch, application developers have provided large numbers of applications or “apps” that allow users to perform a wide variety of different tasks. Applications allow users to process, receive and transmit an endless array of information in the form of text, images, sounds, animations, and video. While some application developers choose to charge subscription fees for access to their applications, others choose to make the applications free to users and to generate revenue from advertisements presented to users in connection with the applications. However, known advertising techniques suffer from several drawbacks.
One common type of advertisement is the “banner” advertisement often shown at the bottom of a mobile device display. Known banner advertisements often consume excess display area and are re-sized to consume additional area when the mobile device is rotated from a portrait to landscape orientation or vice-versa. The excess area that is consumed is wasteful and could otherwise be used to display application content.
In addition, certain known banner advertisements provide no means by which the user can “opt-out” or dismiss the advertising. While some other known banner advertisements provide a means for dismissing the advertising, the selectable area on the display for doing so is often a fraction of the banner area on the mobile device display. As a result, the selectable area for dismissing the advertising is quite small, on the order of 10×10 or 20×20 pixels, which makes precise selection difficult. This in turn makes it more likely that users with no interest in the advertised subject matter will inadvertently select the banner and be directed to a larger advertisement or the advertiser's website, making their selection a poor indicator of their actual interest and buying potential. Also, many known advertising techniques provide static banner advertising that cannot be dynamically updated or changed based on a user's interest level.
Many applications for mobile devices include “scrollable” content that the user can access by moving a finger or stylus in a particular direction along the mobile device display. In certain known applications, any advertising that is initially displayed with the content is “scrolled away” or lost when the content is scrolled because its position on the display is fixed with respect to the content itself. Thus, once the content is no longer visible, the advertisement is no longer visible, which is undesirable from the advertiser's perspective.
Also, application developers are typically required to create the advertising interface area that appears within their application interface area on the mobile device display, which requires extra coding effort on their part. Thus, it would be desirable to develop an advertising solution that application developers can seamlessly integrate with their applications.
Thus, a need has arisen for a mobile device advertising solution that addresses the foregoing issues.